Leadership and Entrepreneurship Forum
23 October 2007, Vilnius, Lithuania, Le Meridien Villon (Highway A2, Vilnius-Riga)
What do leaders, and their followers, gain from entrepreneurial ventures?
Jeff Hurst, Managing Director, Alternative Minds (UK)
What does it take to be a leader in the current business environment? What are the traits of effective leaders and organisations?
The presentation will cover components of successful business development strategies for today – what they are, who makes them work, can they be copied and what they mean for the lives of entrepreneurs and those working in new businesses.
Jeff Hurst has over 20 years’ experience, originally in global hi-tech organisations in project/product management and engineering roles. Some years ago, he co-founded Alternative Minds, an innovative business consultancy.
Mr Hurst now consults a wide variety of organisations and his recent experience includes strategy definition, product management for diverse product portfolios, business process (re-)engineering, programme & project management, qualitative & quantitative research with statistical analysis, change management, brand development activities, e-commerce strategy formulation & implementation.
Mr Hurst has an MBA with distinction and is a member of the Chartered Management Institute. He spoke at IntEnt2005 and most recently participated in the Artis-Tech Enterprise Summer School for young entrepreneurs in the UK.
Quit your job and be your own boss! Franchise opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs
Eythor Edvardsson, Regional Director/Owner, RE/MAX Baltics (Lithuania)
This presentation is a company success story. RE/MAX, a real estate franchising system, originated 35 years ago and now operates in about 7,000 offices with 120,000 people globally.
RE/MAX operates on a proven business concept that enables everyone to start and develop his or her own business. Why this concept might be attractive to experienced business strategists as well as to those who yet only wish to enter the market?
Eythor Edvardsson has been in the real estate business for 22 years, both in sales and in own investing in residential and commercial real estate.
Preparation and launch of a new start up. Case study of 15 Min, a free daily
Tomas Balžekas, General Manager, 15 minučių (Lithuania)
What does it take to prepare a good launch plan for a new start up company? From clearing up the idea and assembling the team to finding financing and other success factors – it will all be covered in the presentation of General Manager of the first Lithuanian free daily 15 Min.
Tomas Balžekas worked for two years at the brokerage and mutual funds investments company Strong Capital Management in the US. After his return to Lithuania, he set up a video and cinema equipment rent and sales business. Two years ago Mr. Balžekas started publishing the first free daily in Lithuania, 15 Min.
How to make strategic goals work and deliver results? The case of the MAXIMA organisation
Pranas Šmaižys, Strategic Management Department Director, Maxima LT (Lithuania)
Each organisation has a mission (or a purpose) and some organisations may also have their vision. Strategic goals are an instrument to guide organisation’s actions for achieving the vision in line with the mission. The mission/vision/strategy triplet is a hot topic on boardroom agendas.
However, few organisations are indeed successful in making the strategy part of their employees’ agendas. Do all of them need to know the strategy? How to communicate the strategy? How to make sure the strategy is lived in the organisation? Does culture play a role in strategy perception by employees?
These and other questions come up on managers’ minds. The presentation aims at suggesting answers to these questions based on the case of the MAXIMA organisation.
Pranas Šmaižys has over ten years experience in corporate strategy formulation and development, organisation design and implementation, and project and change management. He now heads the corporate strategy development function at MAXIMA LT, the largest grocery retailer across the Baltics. Prior to the current position, Mr Šmaižys worked at Bitė Lietuva, a mobile telecommunications network operator and services provider, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
A different kind of intangible assets: the role of creativity and emotional intelligence in modern business
Dr. Visvaldas Legkauskas, Professor, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania)
Creativity and emotional intelligence play an increasingly important role in order to gain competitive advantage in business. Creative and emotionally intelligent entrepreneurs and managers have a better sense of business opportunities, lead their teams more effectively, achieve better results and face less stress.
The presentation will cover creativity as a means of building constant competitive advantage, the traits of creative organisations and creative lifestyle. The speaker will also present emotional intelligence as an inherent skill of successful leaders and ways of improving emotional intelligence and creativity.
Visvaldas Legkauskas has a PhD in Social Sciences and 10 years’ experience in the field of social psychology research. The speaker teaches social psychology and creativity at Vytautas Magnus University. He also leads psychology training for companies.
Public attitude towards entrepreneurship
Inga Nausėdienė, Chairman, RAIT (Lithuania)
The goal of the research is to find out general perception of entrepreneurship, its attitude towards business people and entrepreneurs, the characteristics that are attributed to them, and whether people consider themselves entrepreneurial. The research will contrast the opinions of general public and business people.
Inga Nausėdienė is Chairman of RAIT, a market research company that is part of the international market research network Factum Group. The speaker has ten years' experience in sociological and market research.
Entrepreneurship and taxes
Andrius Kavoliūnas, Deloitte Lithuania (Lithuania)
One must start thinking about taxes at the stage of planning a business. The presentation will cover taxes and their impact on business results.